Contemporary Restaurant La Ville de Pins, South Korea

In 2011 the Seoul-based design studio BANG by MIN completed the renovation of the French restaurant La Ville de Pins. The stunning contemporary restaurant can be located in the upmarket district of Gangnam-gu, in Seoul, South Korea.

According to the architects: “La Ville de Pins’ means a pine village in French. A pine village is situated in the heart of Gangnam in Seoul. This contemporary Korean building boasts of its white figure among the surrounding monotone buildings. It looks like an island and also looks remarkable through the inter-space of the alley. The space composition of this building reflects the client’s wish to make customers experience of a French dinner comfortable. Its space concept also reflects the new food culture named ‘Le Fooding’ on its center. Fooding is a compound word of ‘Food’ and ‘Feeling’, and tells the whole feeling produced by the combination of food, style and atmosphere. La Ville de Pins provides Le Fooding in order that the customers can enjoy French food in the more casual and popular atmosphere.

“This two-storey brick building was built in the 80s. The most important thing in remodeling this old building was to create a space harmonious with the surroundings to attract the eyes.

“I wanted to express the spatial harmony of East and West. I think Eastern spaces follow the world of harmony and have more delicate components, while the Western spaces follow that of control and order.

“It is said that spaces of Korea are the culture of ‘room’. Korean’s tend to form intimacy in closed spaces rather than open spaces. I attempted to create such a space of Korea in this project. I divided the spaces naturally by differentiating their levels even on the same floor.

“White colour to dominates the whole space but is moderate, concise and makes some emptiness. The emptiness of this space becomes the background filled with people’s figures and behaviours. The golden, orange and purple mosaic tiles symbolise the programmes of this space against the white colour. Golden area more public than other areas becomes a cafe for diverse uses and accesses. Orange area is the neutral semi-public space, and the purple area is the most private space. On the second floor, natural wood and black chandeliers show the difference in the areas of this contemporary French restaurant.”

Assif is a luxury travel and design aficionado currently working as a BBC content producer. He holds an MA in journalism from the University of Leeds. He is partial to tea and cake - Yorkshire Tea Gold Blend please. His favourite trips include island hopping in the Seychelles, a mountain escape in Kashmir and getting lost in Hong Kong.

Assif is the current editor of Adelto Magazine. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @journolista.

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